Robot Olympics showcase teamwork, creativity and coding prowess

Robotics students at Queensland’s Injune P-10 State School have just spent ten weeks conceptualising and preparing for their first ever ‘Robot Olympics’.

As part of their summative assessment, the children were expected to build, program and operate their very own Lego robots to compete in events like tennis, rock-climbing, motocross and diving.

Apart from designing and building their competitors themselves, students were also tasked with building the obstacles and event structures as well.

On the day, students from neighbouring primary schools, Arcadia Valley State School and Bymount East State School were invited to participate.

For maths, science and robotics teacher Jess Schofield, it was important that students still had plenty of freedom when it came to designing their robots, and indeed, the whole competition itself.

“I wanted to create an extended project where they could showcase their skills but something that was quite free for them to come up with whatever it is they wanted to create, rather than dictating what the end product should have been,” Schofield says.

“The brief was … they had to create an event that was suitable for the robot to participate in, create rules that were influenced by the human event but adapted for the robot, and create a success criteria around what you’re expecting the robots to complete.”

Schofield notes that apart from the teamwork and practical problem solving skills the students picked up, the project came with a lesson on resilience and perseverance, especially in moments where things might not be going as planned.

“At our school, as a whole, we put a huge focus on resilience and, like, what success looks like.

“It doesn’t look like getting an A on a report card necessarily, but ‘how can you classify success? What does success look like in everyday events?’ That’s what I wanted the students to really focus on.”